CONSUMPTIVE'S PARADISE
but from stories I heard about other places, I am sure it has rivals. One man asserted that one winter he heard there were 37,000 consumptives in and around San Antonio and El Paso. Of course it was not so; but that yarn is spun by the great family of "They Say." On our train there were several poor fellows on their way West for their health. How they did cough! It was distressing. One said, "I have bronchitis which bothers me some. My lungs are not at all affected." How strange the hopeful tone of all consumptives! May be it is well that they are so. "When you get into Arizona, it will be so dusty you can hardly see out of the windows," said the porter. That is the case here in New Mexico and if the wind was blowing it would be blinding. A vast sandy plain in every direction with bare mountains, sometimes sand, sometimes rock, in the far distance, is all we see. As we near Deming, we begin to see wind mills, which indicates the presence of water at not a great depth. Here is a nice town, some large stores, a court house and public school building, all of brick; but what on earth keeps up the town? Possibly there may be grazing land in the region and maybe some mining; but to a stranger all is desert.